'Moral decay' in Humboldt County looks good to me

This week I was witness to a clear sign of the growing rate of our "nation's moral decay." For 123 minutes I watched a gut-wrenching and vivid living image of the further disintegration of America. It was happening before my very eyes, right here in Humboldt County.

A standing-room only crowd filled the Arcata Theater Lounge Tuesday, every set of eyes transfixed on a huge movie screen showing the USA-Belgium World Cup soccer match. Apparently, if you were to believe conservative American columnist Ann Coulter, the entire theater was filled with what I saw as an audience excitedly watching a "boring, wussy sport," and an audience made up of "only ? Americans with foreign blood."

I was startled as everyone packed together at the Arcata Theatre Lounge jumped up in a single, sweaty, happy, roaring mess together, most with arms raised in a swaying craziness with fists pumping up and down. An American flag in the front row was immediately raised high by Alex Banaskiewicz, Eli Vargas, and Colin Swenson, who went absolutely nuts a moment after USA Men's Soccer player Julian Green scored a goal in overtime against Belgium.

I looked around, studied the make-up of the crowd a bit, then glanced to the movie screen noticing the absolutely multi-ethnic and cultural makeup of the USA Men's Soccer team. The demographics of the team and the audience were roughly the same. Most of Arcata's crowd seemed to be the same age as Team USA, with plenty of diverse ethnicities and cultures, even sporting the same traditional and creative haircuts, all with raised their hands excitedly watching a remarkably penalty and flop-free, brilliantly played soccer game. Multiple crowd reactions of Green's goal from around the United States were flashed, showing thousands of Americans emulating the same national passion and appreciating their instant of soccer madness together for a game being played thousands of miles away.

I was reminded of the make-up of my team when playing on my San Gabriel Mission High School soccer team. We won the CIF Championship in 1967, coached by a Scottish coach and a Mexican priest. Some of the last names on our team included Gonzalez, Blandino, Guzman, Moritz, Hitchcock, Rodriguez, Moran, Vasquez, Weber, and my brother (Rafael) Quezada — all had names that appear in their diversity to match the last names of some of our 2014 USA Men's Soccer team — Dempsey, Altidore, Wondolowski, Johnson, Bedoya, Green, Brooks, Chandler. Maybe there is something to be said about playing well when mixing it up.

I witnessed a wonderfully diverse and connected crowd celebrate every stolen or well-defended ball or shot on goal made by USA. I watched Banaskiewicz, Vargas and Swenson hoist an American flag proudly. All three of them were born in Arcata and played soccer since they were very young. They all remembered playing with local soccer coaches Joe Homem and Pete Shepard, Portuguese and Scandinavian coaches affecting generations of kids for decades (and themselves both in Brazil watching the 2014 World Cup matches).

And for the record, Ms. Coulter, the young flag-hoisters are proof positive debunking your claim that "(no one) whose great-grandfather was born here is watching soccer. One can only hope that, in addition to learning English, these new Americans will drop their soccer fetish with time."

It struck me that if watching a cavernous venue full of people cheer their American soccer team with chants of belief and with a deep national pride is a sign of a Coulter's self-described eroding of America, I am much happier living in this real world than within her fearful, weird and warped world she calls America.

Jos? Quezada is a freelance photojournalist and co-owner of North Coast Music Together.